


If You're Out (of Money)

by RetroactiveCon



Series: (Sugar) Baby, What's My Sin? [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Barry Allen has ADHD, M/M, Mob Boss Leonard Snart, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “You didn’t tell me you lost your wallet and found a sugar daddy!” Iris’s indignation doesn’t last through the sentence. By the time she utters those final dread words, she’s laughing helplessly.“I didn’t!” Barry stares at the note. Len. Now he has a name to put to the face, although in light of this, a name seems inadequate.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: (Sugar) Baby, What's My Sin? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599391
Comments: 75
Kudos: 585





	1. Chapter 1

Barry overturns the sofa cushions and tosses them on the floor, heedless of where they fall. It has to be here. If it isn’t here, he dropped it on the street, and if he dropped it on the street…

There’s a knock on his door. He bolts across the room at superspeed, draws back the bolt lock, and hollers “What?” before the door swings open. The moment he has a view of the hallway, he regrets it. 

“I apologize if I interrupted.” The man on the other side of the door is breathtaking. Barry’s already frazzled thoughts turn to static. He misses the rest of the man’s explanation, and it takes a gentle nudge to draw his attention to the object held out in long, black-gloved fingers. 

“Oh, thank you!” He seizes his wallet in both hands and clasps it to his chest. “I dropped it, didn’t I, I’ve been losing my mind…”

“I thought you must be.” The man’s lips quirk into a small, crooked smile. “Do you not believe in cash, or did someone else find it first?” 

Barry is too relieved to question why he knows this. “Uh, I’m bad with cash, like really bad. So no, no cash for me. No.”

Awkward silence descends upon them. It’s entirely Barry’s fault. He’s clumsy and thoughtless and too overjoyed to be reunited with his wallet to think a single coherent thought. The man clasps his hands in front of him and must be about to make his goodbyes when Barry’s manners return. “Oh! Um, before you go, can I offer you coffee or cookies or something? I mean I obviously can’t give you a cash reward because no cash…”

This provokes the first genuine smile he’s seen from his unknown savior. “I won’t take any more of your time.” His voice is gorgeous. Barry wants to melt into that voice and… “I’m just glad to have found you.”

Barry thanks him again and ducks back into his flat. Foolishly, he thinks that’s the last he’ll see of this attractive stranger.

***

Iris comes over for dinner on Wednesday. It’s been their routine since Barry found his own apartment: it gives her a night off from Eddie’s questionable cooking and allows them to catch each other up on the stresses of the week. As Iris has evidently had a hell of a week, Barry sits back and lets her rant.

“And they still don’t respect me, Barry! It’s been a year since the first Flash sightings, three months since you went really public, and that’s still all they want from me. I’m just the best-paid Flash fangirl in Central City.” She stabs her chicken as though it’s done her a grievous wrong. 

Barry finishes his third chicken breast and forces himself not to reach for a fourth. Evenings with Iris are the only times he eats as much as he should; even then, it’s only because Iris would fret if he didn’t. He hasn’t got the money to fuel his absurd metabolism the rest of the week. “They turned down the piece about Elliot’s having mob connections? You got shot at for that story!” 

“I know!” Iris gestures with her wineglass. “Apparently it’s ‘too dangerous’ to publish a piece like that when CCPN is right in Boss Cold’s backyard…”

“I would fight the mob for you,” Barry offers, because it seems the right thing to do. Iris lays a hand on his. 

“I know you would. Unfortunately, I don’t think that would convince Larkin.” She pushes away her mostly-eaten chicken. “But enough about my publishing woes. What happened to you this week?”

“I lost my wallet.” Barry has had an interesting week, starting with running tests on a crime he’d already solved as the Flash and ending with a phenomenally awkward encounter with Captain Singh and Hartley Rathaway. He can’t fathom why his first thought is the errant wallet. “I tore the house apart before a cute guy turned up with it.”

Iris’s eyebrows ascend toward her hairline, a look remarkably reminiscent of Joe. Barry quails as readily under her stare as he would under his foster father’s watchful eye. “And did that cute guy empty it out before giving it back?”

“No! Everything is there.” Barry sips his wine. It won’t excuse the warmth spreading from his nose to his cheeks. Iris knows how little effect alcohol has on him; she also knows a blush when she sees one. “I was so grateful I invited him in for cookies like an idiot, Iris. He was so handsome I didn’t even know what I was saying!” 

To his absolute dismay, she smirks. He braces himself for what he knows is coming. “It’s about time you got back in the dating game. Did you get his number?”

“No!” Barry yelps. She’s asked him the same thing for over a year, blithely ignoring that he’s much too awkward for the ‘dating game.’ “He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.” 

He gets to his feet, gathers up their plates, and darts over to the kitchen to wash up. Iris follows, carrying the half-empty pan of green bean casserole and beaming broadly. 

“Come on. I have Eddie—we’ve been together for over a year now.” This is true. Her campaign to find Barry a partner started around the time she and Eddie got serious. “And you, my sad, lonely brother, haven’t dated anyone since Warren from college. Remember Warren?” 

Barry shakes his head. “No, I dated Linda, remember?...For like two weeks…”

Iris sets down the casserole pan with a merry clink and lays a hand on his shoulder. “Precisely my point. You’re a romantic disaster.”

He shrugs her away and returns to drying the silverware. “It’s all well and good for you to say I should date. You’re in a happy, committed relationship with a phenomenal guy.”

“Aww.” Iris pauses in the midst of rummaging for a container to lean her head against Barry’s arm. “It’s sweet of you to say that. I know you and Eddie didn’t exactly see eye to eye at first.”

“Well, no.” Barry has no desire to explain why. “But he wants to be good for you, and y’know, he makes you happy. And when you’re happy, I’m happy.” 

He wants the affirming-foster-siblings moment to last a little longer. Unfortunately, when Iris has her mind set on something, she cannot be deterred. “I am happy,” she agrees. “And do you know how I got to the wonderful place I am today?”

Barry knows what she’ll say, but teases, “By ignoring Joe’s discomfort with you dating his partner?”

She rolls her eyes. “Rejection, Barry. I dated and turned down a lot of guys before finding Eddie.” 

Barry returns to the table for the lone chicken breast upon a greasy platter. “I know, I know. I’m just bad with the whole rejection thing. Do you remember what happened with Warren?”

Their breakup was far from amicable. Afterward, Barry spent weeks fretting about everything he could have done differently. Several times, he considered going back with the goal of being less Barry and more…whatever Warren wanted him to be. It had taken Warren himself, looking supremely uncomfortable, to reassure him that he hadn’t done something wrong; they simply hadn’t been the right fit. 

“Nobody is good with rejection.” Iris nudges her shoulder gently against his on her way to tuck the casserole remnants in the fridge. “It’s just one of those things you have to get used to.”

Barry isn’t sure she fully understands what he means by ‘bad with rejection.’ It took Joe, a counselor, and a lot of Googling to find the term ‘rejection sensitive dysphoria.’ Having a term for the helpless negative spiral he falls into is a relief; he simply struggles to explain it to other people. Iris, try though she might, will probably never understand how devastatingly awful it is to endure that spiral. 

He finishes washing up while he sorts through these thoughts. Iris, meanwhile, meanders over to the corner of the counter and paws through the mail. “Junk…junk…oh, that’s the same one they sent me…junk…what?”

“What’s ‘what’?” Barry flashes to her side. His eyes go immediately to the discard pile, but the envelope bearing the legend “Important: Final Notice” doesn’t look abnormal enough to generate such confusion. Only after staring at it in bewilderment does he notice the plain envelope in Iris’s hand. 

“Hand-lettered, no return address.” She turns the envelope side to side and holds it up to the light. “Looks like a letter, but that’s kind of ominous, Barry. Are you sure none of your villains—?”

“Just Hartley, and he’s chilled out a lot since he killed evil Wells.” Barry takes the envelope from her. The neat, blue-inked handwriting is unfamiliar. It must not be someone he knows: no one with whom he has even a passing acquaintance would call him ‘Bartholomew H. Allen.’ “I’m gonna open it.” 

“Barry!” Iris huffs, but there’s no disguising the spark of interest in her eyes. She’s as intrigued as he is. 

He slits the envelope open with a butter knife. Two items fall to the counter: a folded note on powder-blue paper and what appears, at first glance, to be a credit card. 

“That’s some elaborate spam,” he says, nonplussed. 

Iris nudges the note open with her fingernail. _“‘You said you don’t do cash,’”_ she reads, her voice becoming more incredulous with every word. _“‘I hope this is an acceptable substitute. Consider it gratitude for enlivening an otherwise dull afternoon. – Len.’”_ She turns the credit card over and gapes. “Barry!” 

“Wait, what?” He takes the note and reads it over. There’s only one person who could have sent this, but what had he done to motivate the beautiful man who returned his wallet to send him money? 

“You didn’t tell me you lost your wallet and found a sugar daddy!” Iris’s indignation doesn’t last through the sentence. By the time she utters those final dread words, she’s laughing helplessly. 

“I didn’t!” Barry stares at the note. Len. Now he has a name to put to the face, although in light of this, a name seems inadequate. “I don’t know why he did this, we only talked for like a minute and I was awkward the whole time!” 

Iris frowns at the card. “Maybe you shouldn’t use it. What if there’s some kind of hidden catch?” 

Unthinkingly, Barry blurts, “I don’t think I’d mind.” Iris claps both hands to her mouth, stares at him in shock, and then bursts out laughing. 

“Well then! Tell me how you really feel!” 

Barry blushes. He hadn’t meant to be quite that forthright, although there’s no doubt in his mind that he would happily honor such a catch if it involved sex. “I can want casual sex with a cute guy. If there’s money involved, that’s a bonus.” 

“And what if it isn’t casual sex? What if he, I don’t know, knows you’re the Flash and wants you to use your superspeed to steal something for him?” When Barry rolls his eyes, Iris presses, “I’m serious. If nothing else, will you please just dust the card for prints and run them against the database? That way you’ll know for sure he’s not a criminal?” 

“He wore gloves last time I saw him.” Barry folds up the note and tucks it in his pocket. “I don’t know if there’d be prints.”

Iris tilts her head, a Joe-like expression of dismay on her face. “And you didn’t think to mention that? Barry, it’s summer. The only people who wear gloves in the summer are the ones with something to hide.” 

Barry almost protests that, as the Flash, he wears gloves year-round; then he realizes this only proves her point. “All right. I’ll dust for prints, and I won’t actually use it.”

“Promise?” Iris folds her arms. 

“I promise.” At the very least, Barry will refrain from using it until the results of the fingerprinting come back. He isn’t sure he can promise not to use it at all: it’s coming up on the part of the month where he has to choose between rent and food, and even a little extra would go a long way. Iris doesn’t need to know that, of course. She and Joe have done so much for him already; they don’t need to worry that he can’t make it on his own. 

Thankfully, after extracting this promise, Iris turns the conversation back to lighter topics. Barry turns his thoughts away from his financial woes and enjoys another hour in her lively company.


	2. Chapter 2

As Barry anticipated, dusting the card for fingerprints is fruitless. For whatever reason, Len was too careful to leave prints. Perhaps this should alarm him. Certainly it reinforces his decision not to use whatever funds are on the card, at least until rent comes due and his fridge is empty. Barry can go without—he’s used to it, sometimes even likes it—but this last week had a brutal run of metahumans to deal with, and he can’t keep going without something to eat. 

It’s with trepidation that he takes the little Visa card with him to the store. There’s no marking on it indicating how much it holds, so he takes it immediately to the help desk and asks how much it contains. The cashier gives him a perplexed look. 

“Birthday surprise?” 

Barry can’t possibly explain that it’s a gift from a man of questionable morals who returned his wallet and may eventually want sex as repayment. He simply nods and says, “Yep.”

This earns him a friendly little smile. “Well, someone’s generous. A hundred even.”

Barry chokes on thin air, trips over his own foot, and nearly flash-stumbles into the wall. He rights himself with a blush and a self-deprecating smile. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t expect that.”

The cashier raises an eyebrow and hands him the card back. “That’s pretty clear. Do you need any other help?” 

“Uh, nope.” Barry tucks the card into his wallet and hides it away in his pocket. “Nope, that’s, uh, that’s it. Thanks.”

He hastens to the door, determined to shop somewhere he hasn’t made a fool of himself. On the way to another grocery store, he tries and fails to process this new information. He’d expected something along the lines of ten dollars, enough to buy a bag of rice and a few cans of beans to tide him over until his next paycheck. This is so far beyond what he’d anticipated that it can’t possibly be real. Iris was right. There must be a hidden catch, and it may not be as easy as sex. 

Still, his other options aren’t better: mooch dinners off Joe, Iris, and his friends for a week, or go hungry and risk collapsing and making everyone worry about him. The thought of Joe’s horrified face if he knew about Barry’s disastrous financial situation makes the decision for him. If there’s a hidden catch, he can deal with it. Until that time, he might as well make the most of what he’s been given.

***

Two, then three weeks pass after Barry first uses his prepaid card. He receives no notes claiming his body or soul; in fact, he receives no notes of any kind. This ends on a quiet Thursday with the delivery of a package.

“I didn’t order anything.” He stares in bewilderment at the package. There’s no distinctive information on the label—everything has been typed—but that doesn’t make him less certain it’s from Len. His heart plummets. This is it. He’ll be asked for some kind of repayment, and he can only hope it’s something he won’t mind…

The package contains no note, only a maroon pullover and a new pair of shoes. Barry turns the box inside out, looking for a note scrawled on the inside. When that reveals nothing, he fishes inside the shoes and turns the pullover inside out. This accomplishes little except confirming that both are of the highest quality. Barry could never dream of affording them, not living paycheck to paycheck as he does. 

“Oh.” He can’t resist nuzzling his face into the pullover. It’s cashmere or some similarly soft material, fit less to be worn than to be made into a nest. “Oh _my.”_

This only puts him deeper in debt. Still, there’s no way to return these things, and his current pair of shoes have holes in them from the way he runs, and the pullover is so warm…

“I guess I should probably wear them.”

The next day, he wears the new shoes but saves the pullover for later. It’s much too nice to risk in the crime lab or as the Flash. He only puts it on once he gets home. Throughout the evening, he finds himself huddling into it like a child with a safety blanket. It’s no doubt unwise to have accepted it, but since he has, he sees no reason not to enjoy it.


	3. Chapter 3

This continues for weeks. Barry receives more clothes (notably, more pullover sweaters, but other things too), another prepaid card, and three notes. The first, which comes with the prepaid card, reads simply, _Keep yourself fed._ The other two come with the clothes—the first with a pale green dress shirt ( _For your testimony next week_ ) and the second with a navy pullover ( _Since you seemed to like the first one_ ). The note about the testimony isn’t surprising—Barry was called in because he was the CSI on a high-profile metahuman case, and that information was public—but the comment about the pullover is jarring. He’s only seldom worn it out of the house, and he hadn’t thought his appreciation for it was obvious. 

After hearing that none of these packages came with demands, Iris renews her teasing that he’s found a sugar daddy. Barry despairs. “I want to actually meet him, though.”

Iris considers this between bites of risotto. “Well, then, try leaving him a note.”

Since he hasn’t got a better plan, Barry scrawls a note on blue paper, folds it up, and tapes it to the front of his mailbox. Len can’t get inside his mailbox, and he’s not about to entrust such a sensitive note to the person in the apartment complex’s mailroom. However, given that Len clearly knows his mailbox number, hopefully he’ll notice the little square of paper. 

When Barry returns that evening, the note is gone. Inside his mailbox, another square of blue paper awaits him. He takes it back to his room before opening it, although anticipation has him jittering on his way up the stairs. 

_Barry –_

_It’s good to know what to call you. Thank you for your note. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I was glad to hear from you. You have no need to thank me; I simply want to help. That said, I’m glad to hear my gifts are of use to you._

_I must advise you that meeting me may not go the way you think. If you are insistent on a meeting, I could take you to lunch at Elliot’s. It’s close to where I work, and it isn’t very far from CCPD, is it? You can find me there most Mondays and Fridays around noon. Come whenever is convenient._

_-Len_

Barry rocks gleefully side to side. He got a reply, and it’s sweet and thought-out and now they might be meeting! 

The mention of Elliot’s introduces a faint pang of concern. He was there for the night Iris approached the restaurant after closing, looking for evidence of possible mob connections. The thugs who’d shot at her had been summarily delivered to the CCPD, but they’d refused to talk. Since then, they’ve known Elliot’s is involved with the mob, but the precise nature of those connections remains a mystery. It would make a macabre sort of sense for his newfound benefactor to also be involved in the mob. 

Of course, given that Iris’s piece about Elliot’s was only recently published, Len may not know. As he said, it may simply be the most convenient location for both of them. Without knowing where Len works, Barry certainly can’t put forth a better one. 

He resolves to go that Friday and find out precisely what’s going on.


	4. Chapter 4

That Friday, Barry dons his maroon pullover. He now has three—maroon, forest green, and navy—but the maroon one remains his favorite. He has a strange feeling his benefactor will be pleased to see him wearing it, even if it is truly too nice to subject to the crime lab.

At noon, he runs over to Elliot’s. It’s barely two seconds away at superspeed, and with the extra time, he skids to a stop in a nearby alley to tame his hair and smooth his clothes. There’s no reason to make his benefactor think he ran and even less to give him reason to suspect Barry of being the Flash. 

Upon stepping into the restaurant, he scans the tables for the handsome man he vaguely remembers. It doesn’t take long to spot him lounging in the booth in the back corner. As Barry approaches, he goes from scanning the diner to focusing on Barry. His eyes are bright, startling, icy blue. Barry feels thoroughly trapped by his keen gaze and finds that he enjoys it. 

“Barry Allen.” He’d forgotten that voice, lazy and strong. Paired with that relentless gaze, Barry understands that he’s being appraised. After several heartbeats, the man smiles. “Sit down. I’m glad you came.”

Barry sinks into the seat opposite him. He’s suddenly aware of how tight his chest has become. The man’s smile widens when he draws a ragged breath. “Uh, you have the advantage of me.”

“Leonard Snart.” The man holds out a hand. He’s dispensed with the black gloves. When Barry clasps his hand, his skin is firm and cool. “Len, if you want.” 

“Snart?” The name is dimly familiar, but Barry can’t recall why. He decides to worry about it later. “Never mind. Len is good, I…uh, I got used to it from your notes, and I…” 

“Liked it?” Len raises an eyebrow. Barry blushes and glances down at the tabletop. 

“Uh, yeah.” 

When he glances up, Len is considering the menu. “The usual, I suppose,” he drawls and slides the laminated booklet over to Barry. “Do you want something to eat?” 

The true answer is ‘always.’ For fear of being uncouth, Barry shakes his head. “Uh, I’m good, I had a big breakfast.” 

“Really, now, Barry.” Len glances up at him from under his lashes, an indulgent smile playing around the corners of his lips. “This is your lunch break. You might as well eat something.”

“Uh…okay.” He flips through the menu, looking for whatever’s cheapest. (Salad. It usually is. It’s the worst possible thing for Barry to eat—with his metabolism, he needs something heavier—but he doesn’t want to ask for more of Len’s money than he’s already taken.) 

Once they’ve placed their orders, Len folds his hands on the tabletop and regards Barry with that beautiful, crooked smile. “I imagine you have questions for me.”

“Uh, just the really obvious one.” Barry wraps his arms around himself and fights the urge to burrow into his pullover. “Why me?” 

Len nods. “I don’t want to do you the disservice of lying to you, Barry. All I ask is that you not immediately run for the door.”

That’s not encouraging. Still, it seems a small enough favor to ask. Barry nods and sits forward, fixing his gaze on Len’s mouth. He wants to make eye contact to show that he’s listening, but he can’t endure more than a few seconds of Len’s piercing gaze without wanting to look away. 

“As I’m sure you can tell, I am currently in a more-than-stable place, financially.” Len gives a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. “I wasn’t always. Picking pockets was a way of life for me until a few years ago. When I saw an abandoned wallet…”

“Your first thought was ‘take it.’” Barry had come to something resembling this conclusion after pondering the query about his cash. Len would have had no reason to know unless he went looking. 

“Precisely.” Len inclines his head. “Went to an ATM, went to make a cash withdrawal, saw that your account was almost empty. Checked your credit card, same story. That was when I returned your wallet, because it was clear to me that you needed every penny.” 

Barry drops his gaze to his hands. That explains why Len hadn’t accepted his offer of coffee and cookies—he must have thought Barry couldn’t afford to spare any food. 

“Afterward, I looked you up. Forensic analyst, still paying off student loans, living paycheck to paycheck on just about the lowest salary the CCPD has to offer. I remember being in that place, Barry, and I realized I had the ability to do something about it.” He tilts his head so that their eyes meet. “I hope you didn’t think you owed me a debt. If anything, this was an apology for what I considered doing to you.”

“Uh.” Barry is spared having to answer by the arrival of their food. His salad looks plain and sad next to Len’s sandwich and fries. Nonetheless, he smiles, thanks the waitress, and eats. “Thank you. Really, thank you. There were weeks I wouldn’t have been able to eat without those cards you sent me, and…I mean, that’s not…that’s a debt I kind of can’t pay back. I mean I don’t know how. It’s, uh.”

“No debts.” Len shakes his head. “I’m not doing this to turn around and rob you blind later, Barry. I’m not a good man—not by any stretch of the imagination—but I’m not cruel.” 

A laugh bursts past Barry’s lips before he can think to stop it. When Len raises an eyebrow, he explains, “My foster sister was with me when I got your first note. She, uh, she was suspicious at first, but then she called you my…” There’s no way he can say it without blushing. “My sugar daddy, and said that I was gonna have to put out eventually.”

This earns him a faint frown. “I’m not trying to buy you, Barry.”

“If you wanted it, though, I wouldn’t be averse.” He stuffs a forkful of salad into his mouth to keep from embarrassing himself further. It’s one thing to joke with Iris; it’s quite another to offer himself to a near-stranger in a restaurant. 

“Dangerous words.” Len’s eyes have darkened. Barry squirms under his gaze, pinned and helpless and unable to look away. “You barely know me.”

“So let me get to know you.” Barry reaches across the table and skims his fingers over the back of Len’s hand. In a single movement, Len flips his hand over and laces their fingers together. “I really kind of expected to come here and get scared off, but I’m not. I’m intrigued and I wanna get to know you.” 

“Well.” Len gives his hand a gentle squeeze. “You know where to find me now.”

Indeed Barry does.


	5. Chapter 5

The next three weeks, he meets Len at Elliot’s on Mondays and Fridays for lunch. Len likes to sit back and let him talk—about Joe, about Iris and Eddie, about his job and his hobbies and recent scientific discoveries that catch his fancy. In return, somewhat more slowly, he learns about Len: that he has a sister named Lisa, that he adores winter, that he’s never left Central City and has no plans to do so. One day, when they’ve eaten their fill and fallen into the warm contentment that comes with a full belly, Barry risks a personal question. 

“I looked you up.”

Len arches an eyebrow. “I suppose that’s only fair,” he concedes. “In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t do it sooner.” 

“I did,” Barry admits. Len’s surname, Snart, stuck with him. Immediately after their first meeting, he’d run several searches to find out why. “I just didn’t want to…y’know. Spook you.” 

Len smiles. “You really are adorable. Everything I’ve done, and you’re worried about spooking me.”

There’s no gentle way to reveal what he found. Barry draws a deep breath and blurts as much as he can remember. “I knew your name because of your father.” Two years ago, Lewis Snart, a small-time mobster with a rap sheet as long as Barry’s arm, was killed in his home. The killer was never found. “I was the CSI on the case. What happened to him…I’m so sorry.”

Len stirs his water. The ice clinks merrily, a counterpoint to the dark conversation. “Small world, isn’t it, Barry?”

“I should have done more.” There had been no evidence to find, save copious quantities of Lewis Snart’s blood. Barry had catalogued everything of interest but found no leads. The only thing he’d worked out was that the killer knew Lewis: the door hadn’t been forced.

“I don’t blame you.” Len reaches across the table and links their fingers together. Barry shivers, not because his skin is cold (although it is) but because the gentle touch makes the speed force in his veins hum to life. “My father was a mobster. Mafia men know how to cover their tracks.”

Barry nods absentminded agreement, half his focus still on their joined hands. “Yeah, they certainly do.”

Len follows where his train of thought would have gone, were it not hopelessly stalled on the tracks. “Has Iris suffered any repercussions for her article?”

“No!” The thought turns Barry’s stomach. If something happened to Iris, if he wasn’t fast enough… “No, not at all. Uh, the police followed up, staked this place out for a week, but nothing happened. Singh figures her article made Boss Cold move shop.”

“That would be the smart thing to do,” Len agrees. He stirs his water with his free hand. “Why publish the article, though? Why not go directly to CCPD?”

“She did. We did.” Barry flinches. He doesn’t mean to sound like he was involved in anything other than a supporting role. “Singh was more than fair. He questioned the guys who shot at Iris—no joy—set up a sting—no joy—and finally told her to go public because he thought it might scare Boss Cold.”

“And scared men make mistakes.” Len hums thoughtfully. “Your captain is a clever man.”

Barry doesn’t quite stifle a snort of mirth. Singh is a formidable and fair captain; otherwise, he’s a bit oblivious. His first thought after Barry’s ill-fated encounter with him and Hartley was that the two of them were exes, and he’d chivalrously offered to step aside. Hartley nearly laughed himself sick. “Uh…yeah, most of the time.” 

Len’s eyes twinkle. “Love makes fools of all of us, Barry.”

Barry ducks his head and studies the tabletop. He doesn’t want to agree aloud—admitting to ‘love’ after three weeks would make him feel clingy and desperate. Instead, he manages a neutral, “I guess.”

When his lunch hour ends, Len walks him to the door. He’s done this the last two times they’ve met. It makes Barry feel thoroughly adored, as though he’s in the company of a gentleman who wants to make sure he’s safe. This time, rather than stop at the door, Len accompanies him onto the sidewalk. 

“Oh, uh, you don’t have to.” With Len watching, he won’t be able to run until he’s around the corner. (Singh won’t mind. He’s taken a philosophical view of Barry’s lateness.) 

“Perhaps not,” Len agrees, looking up at him from under his lashes. Barry fights not to blush. “But you’ll find that I want to.” 

Barry would happily have stood there for hours, but unfortunately, he can only stress Singh’s patience so long. “I should go,” he murmurs. “Singh’s gonna be angry.” 

Len nods. “As always, a pleasure, Barry.” Then, to Barry’s shock, he raises Barry’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. 

Barry makes a sound that can best be transcribed as “Aaieep!” Lightning spikes through his veins, and for a heartbeat, he’s afraid he’ll race away on instinct. The moment passes and he finds himself still on the sidewalk with Len smiling against his skin. 

“Go,” he urges. Laughter teases around the edges of his words. “You wouldn’t want to keep your captain waiting.”

Barry nods without hearing what Len says. He jogs to the end of the street, turns the corner, and races back to the precinct. If, along the way, he happens to run into a lamppost, nobody needs to know.


	6. Chapter 6

Weeks pass. Breaches appear, a phenomenon Cisco says is connected to Barry’s traveling back through time. A malicious speedster called Zoom uses them as a gateway; so does the Earth-2 counterpart of the deceased Harrison Wells. Barry must show his stress, because one day at lunch, Len suggests, 

“I’d like to take you to dinner.”

Barry chokes on his shake. When he’s finished coughing, he says, “This isn’t enough of a date?” He’s thought of these meetings as biweekly dates. Perhaps, he reasons with a frisson of fear, Len considers them strictly business. Perhaps he’s simply evaluating his investment, and the moment Barry ceases to be interesting…

“Well.” Len arches an eyebrow. “I’d like to take you somewhere that serves finer fare than burgers.”

“Don’t let Elliot hear you say that.” Barry made the acquaintance of the formidable shop owner two weeks ago. Elliot is ex-military and runs his kitchen with the precision of a drill sergeant. Even if Barry had any criticisms about the food (he doesn’t), he wouldn’t voice them within several blocks of the restaurant. 

This earns him a little laugh. “Elliot knows and likes what he cooks. He won’t be offended if I choose to take you to a classier venue.” Len turns Barry’s hand palm-up and traces delicate patterns on the skin of his wrist. “Are you amenable?”

“Uh, I dunno.” Barry gestures at himself. “I’m not exactly a classy date.” Elliot’s is precisely his speed. He would feel woefully out of place at a fancier establishment. “You don’t have to impress me to, y’know. Seduce me.” 

Len shakes his head, smiling the small, wicked grin that makes Barry think he’s about to be thoroughly ravished. “I told you, Barry, my goal is not to lure you to bed. At first, yes, there was an element of self-interest—nothing done out of guilt is selfless—but by now? I like you, and I hope you feel the same.” 

Barry has no way to answer that, not because he dislikes Len—he can think of few people with whom he’s so unabashedly himself—but because it’s impossible to process that Len likes him. He has nothing to offer. His role in this relationship is something akin to ‘parasite,’ and people can’t like parasites. “I, uh. I like you a lot. It’s just…I can’t…”

“Pay me back?” Len intuits. “Oh, Barry. You do more for me than you know. It’s good to have someone to talk to.”

Barry tilts his head. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten the impression that Len is lonely, but he doesn’t know why a man so clearly desperate for company deprives himself of it. There must be worthier sources than him. “I guess it still feels uneven.”

“Then let’s compromise.” Len’s smile grows. Barry tamps down a shiver. “Why don’t we go back to your quaint little apartment and you can cook. You’ve told me about the meals you prepare for Iris on Wednesdays; you’re clearly a more-than-capable chef.”

Without his permission, Barry’s mind supplies the precise meal he’d make: chicken parmesan, with garlic bread and a salad and some wine. It’s homey and welcoming, and he could always drop the leftovers with Iris to spare her another night of Eddie’s cooking. He stops this thought before it can finish. “I’m, uh, it won’t be fine cuisine or anything…”

“No,” Len agrees, “but this way I can intrude on you a little bit. Make you feel like you’re contributing a little more. Besides, I’m curious to see your apartment.” 

“Uh.” His apartment, right. He’ll have to clean before he would dare have company over. “Uh, right. Maybe Saturday? Instead of Friday? In addition to Friday?” 

“Instead, I’m afraid.” Len laces their fingers together. “I have business to attend to on Friday. It will go much quicker with this to look forward to.” 

“Uh…yeah,” Barry agrees. He’s so flustered that he almost puts his eye out with his straw when he goes to take a drink. Thankfully, Len doesn’t seem to notice. 

The week goes by quickly with the promise of a visitor on Saturday. He cleans the apartment once on Tuesday, again on Thursday, and a third time on Friday. Iris, astonished by the fact that she can suddenly see the sofa, interrogates him until he explains why. She doesn’t stop teasing him until he sees her out the door. 

Saturday dawns sunny and brisk. It’s a beautiful day for an early-morning run, so Barry indulges himself. On the way home, he stops for groceries, including a fresh-baked loaf of bread that almost doesn’t make it back to the apartment. As soon as he gets home, he wants to launch into cooking, but there’s too much time. Instead, he forces himself to sit down and be patient. This is no easy task; every five or ten minutes, he leaps to his feet with the feeling that he’s lost vast amounts of time. He never has. 

Just before five, he readies the chicken parmesan and gets it in the oven. At half past, just as the timer beeps, there’s a knock on the door. Barry yanks the tray out of the oven, speeds over to the door, and throws it open with a gleeful, “Hi!” 

“Hi yourself.” Len greets him by taking his hand and kissing his knuckles. Barry stifles a startled squeak and beckons him inside. 

“Uh, you’re right on time, I just got the food out of the oven, and we can eat now or we could eat in a little bit and I’m rambling now, I’ll shut up.” He shuts his mouth with a decisive click of teeth. Len raises a hand to caress his cheek. 

“You’re the host. Your decision.”

“Uh, chicken parm is best when it’s hot, so food now?” Barry leads him toward the dining table, which has been speed-polished to a glassy shine. (He actually polished it twice. If this is bad for the table, he hopes not to find out until after dinner.) 

Len inclines his head. “That sounds wonderful.”

Barry hurries into the kitchen to fetch the food. He’s loath to make two trips, but carrying three serving dishes at once sounds like a recipe for disaster. On his first trip, he finds Len in the midst of decanting red wine into the wineglasses. 

“I hope you don’t mind. It was the least I could do, since you cooked.” 

Barry sets the salad nearest himself and the garlic bread nearest Len. If the garlic bread is directly in front of him, the temptation to eat the whole loaf will be unbearable. “Yeah, yeah, I…have no idea what wine is good.” It’s the politic way to say he can’t get drunk. He only keeps wine on hand for Iris’s weekly visits; the taste isn’t enjoyable enough to drink alone. 

“I find it's usually hard to go wrong with red." He sets the bottle on the table within easy reach. “Is this dinner?”

“Oh, chicken, right!” Barry hurries back to the kitchen and returns with the chicken. It smells wonderful, with a sweet undertone from the marinara sauce, and he realizes at once how hungry he is. He reminds himself that Len doesn’t know about his enhanced metabolism and that he needs to eat accordingly. 

When he gets back to the table, Len is waiting with his hands folded in his lap. As soon as Barry steps through the door, he gets to his feet and pulls out a chair for him. 

“Oh, eep,” Barry mutters under his breath. Nobody has ever pulled out his chair for him. “I’m the host, I should be the one…”

“You’re carrying trays.” Len takes his seat and lets Barry set the platter of chicken in the center of the table. “It's the least I can do.”

“Uh.” Flustered, Barry sinks into his seat and stares at his plate. “Help yourself.”

After the initial awkwardness, dinner is thoroughly enjoyable. Barry tells Len about his latest run-in with Hartley and Singh, whose relationship is evidently progressing well. (Barry will never think about Jitters the same way again.) In turn, Len regales him with stories from his youth: ice-skating with Lisa and falling over every two seconds, trying out for the soccer team, and teaching himself to flip knives to impress a pretty girl at school. After the last story, he holds out his hand and lets Barry glimpse small, pale cuts on his skin. “I wasn’t very good,” he admits. 

“I can’t do sharp things.” Barry shrugs, using the easy movement to hide the way he slips his hands under his thighs. He learned the fine art of enforcing quiet hands at school. There’s no better way to stop himself reaching for more food, and hopefully Len won’t notice. 

Unfortunately, ‘unobservant’ is not a fault that can be laid at Len’s door. “Are your scars that much worse than mine?” 

“No.” Barry sifts through excuses in a matter of seconds. He can’t explain it’s to keep from eating—Len will be disappointed, and anyway he might get suspicious about Barry’s metabolism. He can’t explain stimming for fear Len will think him stupid. Finally, he settles on, “I kinda like the pressure.” 

Len smirks. “There’s a simpler solution for that, Barry. Give me your hand.”

Barry stammers a little but does as he’s told. Len’s hands are cool and firm and incomparably good for pressure stimming. Whatever thoughts are in his head turn to pleasant static. “Oh, uh, okay. This is good.”

Len glances at him out of the corner of his eye. His expression is softer than Barry has ever seen—not merely indulgent, but openly fond. “Glad to hear it.”

When Barry manages to think past _holding hands,_ he offers, “Uh, I can clean up and we can move to the couch or something? Or we could stay right here, I guess, but the couch is more comfortable…”

“Cleanup can wait.” Len squeezes his hand. “I don’t want to let you go.”

They migrate to the sofa, still holding hands. At the last second, Barry goes rigid and doesn’t know what to do with himself. Always before, he’s been seated opposite Len. Now that he has the opportunity to sit beside him, he feels hopelessly out of place. Len resolves this by pulling Barry down against his side. 

“Are you always this awkward, or do I scare you that much?” 

“Little of both.” Barry should stop before he humiliates himself. That doesn’t mean he can. “I guess it’s that, um, you could get tired of me and leave whenever you wanted, and it wouldn’t make any difference to you.” 

“I could,” Len agrees. The bottom drops out of Barry’s stomach. This whole evening was leading to this point, and Len is about to leave him and… “That doesn’t mean I want to. Against my better judgment, I’ve grown fond of you over the last few months, Barry.”

Barry’s panic fizzles like a fire doused in ice water. “You what?” 

Len’s free hand cradles his cheek. Barry melts into his touch, aware of how pitiful he must look but helpless to stop himself. “I like you, Barry. You’re genuine, and in my line of work, ‘genuine’ is rare. It means more than you know.” 

Unbidden, Barry finds his eyes dropping to Len’s lips. They could kiss. They’re close, and Len is looking at him, and all it would take is leaning forward…

“I should go.” Len’s voice has dropped an octave. It jolts Barry out of his daze, and he hurries to put space between them. _Stupid. Stupid, stupid Barry, lusting after someone who could do so much better._ “I’m sorry, I should go.”

“Um.” Barry resists the urge to bolt to the kitchen. “You could take the rest of the chicken? I can get that packaged up…”

“No.” Len gets to his feet. “That’s all right.” ‘You need it more than I do’ goes unspoken. The reminder of their uneven relationship cools the remnants of Barry’s cheer. 

“Then, um, yeah. I guess…yeah.” He refrains from saying they’ll see each other on Monday. That seems presumptuous, particularly if the almost-kiss managed to jolt good sense back into Len. “It was good to have you over.”

“Thank you for inviting me.” Len holds out a hand, thinks better of it, and lets it fall to his side. Barry takes an additional half-step backwards. There’s no remedying whatever’s gone wrong; he can only give Len the space he so clearly craves. “I enjoyed getting to see you outside of Elliot’s.”

Barry doesn’t promise to return to their same time and place on Monday. He needs time to consider what he did wrong before he imposes his company on Len another time. “Uh…drive safe, if you’re driving.”

Len looks at him, his lips parted as though about to speak. He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he inclines his head, gives a strangely sorrowful smile, and leaves.


	7. Chapter 7

Barry spends Sunday fretting about the date. He did something wrong; Len wouldn’t have left so abruptly if he hadn’t. It must have been when he looked like he wanted a kiss. He was too forward. This is a strictly business relationship, and he has to remember that. As long as he keeps that in mind—as long as he doesn’t try for kisses or touches beyond what Len is comfortable with—they might be able to fix his Saturday mishap. 

With this in mind, he braves Elliot’s on Monday. Len is in his customary booth, studying a sheet of paper that he tucks away when Barry gets close. “Barry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t expect you.”

He doesn’t want him. Of course he doesn’t. “I don’t have to stay,” Barry hurries to assure him. “I just wanted to apologize for Saturday. I didn’t mean to chase you away.” 

“Chase me away?” Len looks blank. “Why would you think that?” 

Perhaps he’d meant to leave that quickly. Perhaps Barry almost kissing him hadn’t driven him away. Perhaps, Barry reasons, he did get scared off and is trying to pretend it never happened. “…You left really fast.” He supposes he might as well tell Len everything. “I wanted to kiss you. I thought maybe you could tell and it upset you.”

Len raises his eyebrows. “Oh, Barry,” he murmurs. “You think—oh, no. No, you didn’t scare me away.” 

Hesitantly, Barry sits down opposite him. Whatever happened, Len seems to think it wasn’t his fault. It isn’t permission, precisely, but he’s too curious to leave and hopes Len doesn’t mind.

“I left because I wanted to kiss you,” Len explains. “I wasn’t prepared for that, and I didn’t want to hurt you.” 

“Hurt me?” This is so far from what Barry expected that the words won’t process. Len left because he was afraid _for_ Barry, not of him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not what you would call ‘good with relationships.’” Len’s lips twist into a wry smile. “I didn’t want to give you false hope that I was. You mean a lot to me, Barry, and I don’t want to ruin that with romance.” 

Barry can’t help laughing, so relieved he feels slightly hysterical. “You’re being noble! That’s what this is!”

Len shakes his head. “I’m not ‘noble,’ Barry. Never have been.”

“I don’t mean it in a good way.” He can’t believe he spent the weekend blaming himself for something they both clearly wanted. If Len doesn’t know how to handle it, that’s not Barry’s fault. “I mean you made that decision for me without asking me, and I spent the weekend afraid I did something wrong and drove you away because you couldn’t tell me to slow down. That’s not kind, Len, it’s selfish.”

“I know that.” Len doesn’t bristle at the accusation. If anything, the look in his eyes invites Barry to continue. “I’m not proud of it.”

“What if I told you that I don’t care?” He’s being reckless. He ought to stop now, go back to the way they were before, and pretend none of this happened. “I’ve been in bad relationships, yeah. If this goes bad, okay, fine. At least we tried.”

“That’s what you want, Barry?” Len’s expression is inscrutable. Barry can’t tell if he likes the idea or if he’s a hairsbreadth from rejecting Barry and ending their arrangement. “Just to try?”

Barry nods and parrots, “Just to try.”

Afterward, he can’t say which of them makes the first move. It’s barely a kiss, more a quick press of lips—sealing the deal, in a way. He shivers when they part. “Uh, yeah. Something like that.”

Len’s expression has gone fond, the way it did on Saturday. For a moment, Barry half-forgets where they are. This makes it all the more unpleasant to be interrupted by a loud, unfamiliar voice. “Well!” 

Barry leaps to his feet before he looks to see who’s interrupted them. When he does, he has to resist the urge to run for his Flash suit. Standing in the middle of Elliot’s diner is a man he knows only from wanted posters: John Abruzzi, a mobster from the upper ranks of the Santini crime family. He regards them not with animosity but with amusement. “So this is your new pet, eh, Leonard?”

“Barry,” Len says calmly, “go find Elliot.”

“No!” He knows Abruzzi by reputation. Whatever Len has done to earn his wrath, he won’t be kind. “I know what he can do, I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

To his alarm, Abruzzi’s lopsided smile widens. “Oh,” he breathes. “You haven’t told him, have you, Leonard? He has no idea who you are, or what you would do to me without batting an eye.”

Barry glances between Abruzzi and Len. He hates himself for believing Abruzzi so easily—hates the thought that Len might be keeping secrets. “Len?”

“Barry.” Len’s tone brooks no argument. “Go find Elliot.”

Barry doesn’t move. That split-second of hesitation is all Abruzzi needs. He grabs Barry by the scruff of his neck, hauls him close, and presses a knife below the angle of his jaw. “Be very good,” Abruzzi murmurs, “and I won’t kill you unless your ‘Len’ makes a mistake.” More loudly, he says, “Your mistake, Cold. You should know better than to bring innocents into our world.”

Barry’s reality turns on its head. He must have misunderstood. There’s no way his Len could be Boss Cold. 

Len doesn’t bat an eye. “You want me, Abruzzi, I won’t fight. Just keep the kid out of it.”

“Give me your weapons,” Abruzzi replies. “Then we’ll talk.”

Without hesitation, Len lays a slender knife, a small pistol, and an energy gun on the table. Abruzzi digs the knife into Barry’s neck. “And the rest.”

Reluctantly, Len lays down another knife and a set of lockpicks, many of them sharp enough to be used as weapons. Abruzzi nods. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Aldo!” He gestures with the knife. “Take the kid to the freezer and keep him in there. If Cold plays nice, he might not have to stay there too long.”

The man named Aldo grabs Barry’s upper arm and tows him into the kitchen. Elliot, spatula in hand, glances over the pass as soon as the door swings open. “Hey,” he snaps. “This is a restricted area.”

Barry glances at Aldo. Unlike Abruzzi, Aldo evidently thinks it unnecessary to keep a weapon trained on him—his mistake. Loud enough for Elliot to hear, Barry says, “Abruzzi.”

Aldo yanks Barry’s head back sharply enough to make him dizzy, but the damage is done. Elliot sets the spatula down; then, faster than a normal eye could catch, he picks up a plate and throws it at Aldo. Barry ducks out of the way. The plate strikes home with a sickening crack! Aldo staggers, and Barry speeds into motion. 

It takes something like ten seconds to get to STAR Labs, don his suit, and return to the kitchen. In that short time, Elliot has rounded the pass, knife in hand, and Aldo has drawn a gun. Before either of them registers his presence, Barry disarms both of them, knocks Aldo unconscious, and shuts Elliot in the pantry. He likes Elliot, but if he is in fact a Mafia man, Barry can’t let him walk free. 

When he runs into the restaurant, Abruzzi has a knife pressed to the delicate skin below Len’s eye. Barry speeds toward them without stopping to check his surroundings. Abruzzi must hear him or notice the lightning, because by the time Barry reaches his side, he’s turning his head. Barry wrenches the knife from his hand and punches him hard enough to break bone. 

Before Abruzzi hits the floor, Barry has disarmed and bound the other mobsters and sent them tumbling to the floor. Once all of them are down, he wheels on Len, vibrating his face and vocal cords to disguise himself further. 

“So you’re the infamous Boss Cold?” He doesn’t quite manage to keep the anger from his voice. 

Len spreads his hands. His encounter with Abruzzi seems not to have fazed him; his gaze remains steady, his expression calm. “Guilty as charged. And you, I presume, are Central City’s scarlet speedster?” 

The confirmation hurts worse than Abruzzi’s knife. This whole time, Barry has been cozying up to a criminal. He told him about Singh, about Joe and Iris, about the article and the investigation. If his friends got hurt because of his carelessness—“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t turn you in with the others.”

Len smirks. “I can give you three. First, you arrest me, and Central City’s criminal underworld loses the only man with a sense of morality, strange as that sounds. I know some people who would be dead but for my influence.” Barry thinks of Iris. Is Len—Cold—threatening her? “Second, you don’t want to, or you wouldn’t hesitate. You’d have knocked me out cold—pardon the pun—like those thugs.” 

On the floor, Abruzzi stirs. Len delivers a vicious kick to his side. 

“Third, whatever trick you’re doing to mask your voice, you can stop. Give me some credit, Flash—I’ve had my suspicions for weeks. I’m not going to use it against you.”

Barry stops vibrating. To his alarm, Len merely smiles. 

“Arrest me if you want, Flash, but I’m more useful to you free.”

Unfortunately, all his points are good ones. If Len is the only one keeping Iris out of trouble for her article, Barry can’t move against him. “And everything else? Questioning me about the police movements? Was that the only reason…?”

“No.” Len shakes his head. “It was useful, but no, it was never my goal. I meant what I said, Flash. All of it.”

Barry can’t process that right now. Instead, he orders, “Get Elliot, get out of here. I’m turning these guys over to the police.” 

Len arches an eyebrow. “What did you do with Elliot?”

“He’s in the pantry,” Barry admits. He hopes Elliot, unlike Len, never connects the Flash with him—he doesn’t want to know what punishment is in store for storing him in the pantry. 

Before he leaves, Len says, “I hope this doesn’t ruin things between us, Flash.”

Barry approves of his choice of words—not change, but ruin. That doesn’t mean it’s something he can promise at this juncture. Right now, even allowing Len to escape capture is under duress. “We’ll see.”

When, ten minutes later, the police arrive, Barry pretends to have been caught off-guard during his lunch hour. Singh declares, “For once, Allen, you’re on time,” and thrusts an evidence collection kit into his hands. Around this time, Elliot emerges from the kitchen. He submits to questioning willingly, either innocent of mob connections or excellent at feigning it. Barry pays this no mind and instead devotes his energy to not collecting evidence too close to Len’s favored booth. 

“Hey Barr?” Joe approaches him. “After Iris’s exposé, why are you still eating here? Weren’t you afraid of something like this?” 

“Uh…” Iris knows about Len; Joe doesn’t. Now, with the recent revelations to sort through, is the wrong time to tell him. “Elliot makes good burgers. Plus he’s chatty.”

Across the room, Elliot raises an eyebrow. Barry struggles not to laugh. ‘Chatty’ might be a bit of a stretch, but he can be talkative, and Barry likes talking to him almost as much as he’d enjoyed conversing with Len. 

Joe glances at Elliot in confusion. “Uh huh,” he says, his tone disbelieving. “Well, maybe don’t come here again?”

“I won’t” rises to Barry’s lips, but he doesn’t speak. That may not be a promise he can keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who've watched Prison Break, you probably recognized Abruzzi - I needed a mobster and couldn't resist. Also, Len decided he wanted to be a bastard there at the end. I think they'll make up, as long as he doesn't pull out the Boss Cold persona again.


End file.
